


Wrong Turns and Dead Ends

by goldenheadfreckledheart



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Laser Tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 15:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5831068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenheadfreckledheart/pseuds/goldenheadfreckledheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>BFF prompt fill: Do you think you could do a Bellarke AU where they're playing laser tag with friends and they end up kissing in like the hiding spot in the corner or something. Thank you! <3</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrong Turns and Dead Ends

**Author's Note:**

> It turns out I have a lot of nostalgia about laser tag. I also haven't played in ages, so apologies for any inaccuracies.

Clarke has always loved laser tag. It’s futuristic and cheesy and _fun_ and her dad took her all the time when she was young. Some of her best memories are of grungy, neon, black-lit mazes and Star Wars-esque sound effects.

So, when Raven decides that’s what she wants to do for her birthday—play laser tag and then go get drunk—Clarke couldn’t be any more pumped. Or, at least she couldn’t until she finds out that Octavia’s brother is tagging along: Bellamy Blake, who is as infuriating as he is attractive.

He’s got as good a reason to hate her as she does him, to be fair, considering they’d been mutually fired from the rundown smoothie shack where they both worked three summers ago. The incident had culminated in a smoothie splashed in an unsuspecting customer’s face and…well, she’s done her best to block out the memory. Not her finest moment.

Not that it was his either. She’s fairly sure that he’s the one who instigated the challenge, spurring her on with comments about her rich parents, how she didn’t even need the job, such a _princess_.

She’d been furious in the aftermath…and maybe a little guilty. Despite her best efforts to know as little as possible about him, she _was_ aware of how much Bellamy needed the job, especially during the summer when his campus job didn’t give him good hours. But still, he was wrong about her, and her father had just died, so she held the grudge.

Now though, he’s become infuriating for a completely different reason. Because, as fate had it, she didn’t stop seeing him after that.

She was slotted as his then-freshman sister’s randomly assigned roommates her sophomore year; a situation that warranted a secondary confrontation about the whole catastrophic event that probably didn’t make for a good first interaction with Octavia. She’s still not sure how they ended up as good of friends as they did.

So Clarke’s known Bellamy for three years now, despite their intentions to interact only scarcely, which means she’s come to know that he’s as affectionate, curious, and honest as he is snarky, spiteful, and stubborn.

They’re friends now, she thinks, or something akin to that. They don’t yell at each other on sight, which she counts as a victory. So she’s not so much _mad_ that he’s coming as she is upset that she’s _not_ mad. Because she’s really really not mad.  

She hasn’t seen him in a while, what with his grad school and her senior thesis and…it’s possible she misses him. Which is something strange in itself. She doesn’t feel like she should _get_ to miss Bellamy Blake. How did this become a normal part of her life?

“Griffin!” he calls when she’s saying hi to Lincoln.

She turns to find him looking…well, as good as ever, honestly. The glasses are her weakness.

“Well if it isn’t my least favorite Blake,” she greets with a smirk.

“Ha! Suck it Bell,” Octavia says, appearing from behind her brother to wrap Clarke up in a hug. “You should hang out with us more often, I can always use help telling him he’s a boring nerd.”

Clarke grins. She’s missed them both. “Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good time.”

She turns to Bellamy, assuming he’ll be glaring at them both, but instead he’s _smiling,_ which is probably worse.

Octavia runs off to monopolize Lincoln, saying hi to Monty and Miller along the way, leaving Clarke and Bellamy to themselves.

“How’s the thesis coming?” he asks, genuine, falling in step beside her as they make their way through the loud arcade toward the laser tag arena.

“If I’m getting graded on how much I want to tear my hair out, everything’s _great_.”

He winces. “That bad, huh?”

“We can’t all be history nerds whose field is stagnant and not, you know, constantly evolving,” she says, mostly because she knows it’ll rile him up. She thinks history is fascinating, actually. Neuroscience just happens to be _more_ fascinating.

He scowls at her, eyes bright with challenge. “I _know_ that’s not actually how you feel about it, but since you snapped my olive branch in half…” He leans toward her, and he’s clearly going for intimidating, but he’s smiling, so the effect is kind of ruined. “You better hope we’re not on opposite teams.”

They’re extremely childish for a pair of twenty-somethings, so they spend the rest of the time before the game exchanging heckling comments along the lines of “you’re going down,” and “bring it on.” Because they’re adults. Clearly.

She’s pretty sure Jasper wolf-whistles at them when their comments get heated. She flips him off and definitely doesn’t blush.

 

**Game 1:**

They are on opposing teams, of course, and she’s _so ready_ to kick his ass when the intercom voice counts down to the start of the game, because having a crush doesn’t mean she’s about to risk her pride. The buzzer sounds and her team—Raven, Monroe, Sterling, Lincoln—flee from their base, leaving Jasper behind as a guard.

She’s on high alert the entire first half of the game, expecting Bellamy to appear around every corner. But then he just…doesn’t. In fact, she doesn’t see him at all and she’s forced to admit, with a weird amount of sadness, that he’s not targeting her like she assumed she would.

Crouching in a corner that provides her with cover and a clear view of most of her surroundings, she mentally chides herself, because the only thing that makes less sense than thinking Bellamy would play dirty is being disappointed when he _doesn’t_.

After a deep breath, she sets out again, taking out Wick easily when he doesn’t check the hallway before rushing in, and tagging Harper’s shoulder when she peeks up over a barricade of barrels.

She’s close to the enemy base when hears a series of _thuds_ around the corner. Tentatively, she peeks around, and rushes forward when she sees the blue lights on the player’s vest—her team.

“Shit, Monroe. You okay?”

“Yeah,” the other girl says, rubbing an elbow. “Just tripped over a floorboard. I swear this place is a million years old.”

Clarke grins as she helps her up. “More fun this wa—”

She doesn’t even fucking hear him. One second her vest is lit, and the next it’s not, sounding the power-down chirp that means she’s been hit. Monroe’s does the same.

“What the hell?”

She whips around to catch sight of Bellamy where he’s crouching at the edge of the doorway.

“Let your guard down,” he chides, all smug cockiness. “Bad form, Clarke.”

She surges to go after him with a snarl, but Monroe catches her arm. “We’re not powered up yet.”

Taking a steadying breath, Clarke nods, plan already forming in her head, still glaring at the doorway where Bellamy used to be.

“You keep heading toward their base,” she says. “Raven says it’s only Murphy standing guard.”

“What are you going to do?” Monroe asks, all seriousness, flicking a braid back behind her shoulder.

Clarke grins. “Head Bellamy off.”

She hears Monroe say something else—“… _predictable._ ”—but she’s already up and off, making the most of her immunity before her vest refreshes.

Five turns later, she catches the sight of back of his messy hair just as her gun blinks back online. _Perfect._ Careful to keep her steps even and quiet, she edges up to the intersection he’s just crossed.

When she toes forward to look, he’s pressed up against the wall beside the entrance to their base, completely ignorant of her presence. No reason to expect anyone coming up behind when the pillar he needs to attack is _in front_ of him.

She lifts her gun and pulls the trigger, nailing his back target dead on.

“Let your guard down, Blake,” she singsongs before he can even start looking around for his attacker. His expression is perplexed and priceless. She casts him a bright smile and almost think she sees him return it—annoyance evaporating—before she runs off again.

They take each other out once more, each, in the remaining five minutes of the game and it’s the most fun she’s had in awhile. Bellamy’s team wins by a slim margin and Clarke glares at him halfheartedly when he jeers at her from the other side of the room. But then he’s gushing to Miller about how she did “a fucking _barrel roll_ ” the second time she caught him off guard, and she decides she’s only a _little_ mad at him.

 

**Game 2:**

Raven divvies up the teams for the next round, and Bellamy ends up on her team, which kind of ruins her plans for beating him soundly this time.

“Truce?” he says when he joins her next to the blue equipment racks.

She grins easily, shedding their disparaging banter. Because priorities. “No sense in working against each other, right? I’m pretty sure I heard Jasper and Octavia discussing our ‘imminent demise.’”

He scoffs. “Jasper’s judgement is questionable on his own. Put him with my sister and they’re _both_ delusional.”

She smiles at him. “Let’s do this.”

Where there was no real structure to the first game, everyone is more comfortable with the layout this time, and eager to implement actual strategy.

Taking inspiration from the way she took him down the first time, they have Monroe and Monty wander through the passageways closest to their base, hoping to catch unsuspecting enemies who think they’re close to scoring easy points. Miller stays back to guard the base, leaving Clarke and Bellamy to head the attack on their opponent’s base.

It works well, and they land a successful round of shots on Octavia’s tower before Raven appears and takes them out.

The two of them regroup in a secluded hallway somewhere in the middle of the maze, debating pulling Monroe up to help, leaving Miller and Monty to defend the base. Clarke eventually convinces Bellamy to leave their strategy as it is. “If they can’t score points on us, it doesn’t matter that we’re not scoring massive amounts, as long as we’re _scoring._ ”

They’re about to start moving again when they hear footsteps at the end of the hall. Bellamy freezes the exact moment she does.

Whoever it is must jam their foot into something in the dim light, because they hear shuffling and then a muffled “ _shit_ ” that could only belong to Jasper.

It would be funny if he weren’t still coming their way.

“There’s no way we make it down the hall in time,” Bellamy whispers, low and quiet, nodding in the opposite direction.“He’d take us out before we made it halfway.”

“I know,” she whispers back, just as quiet and quick. He’ll be able to see them any second.

The idea she gets isn’t _good,_ and there’s certainly no guarantee that it’ll work, but it’s all she’s got.

A quick “sorry” is all she gets out before grasping the strap of his vest, pulling him down and against her, pressing her lips against his with purpose.

She feels the exact second he goes still. And she feels the exact moment he must realize what she’s doing, because suddenly he’s _kissing back_ which is somehow not something she had anticipated. His hand comes to rest at her at waist—or as close to her waist as is possible with the bulky equipment—and then he’s taking her breath away with short kisses followed by long, searing ones. It’s enough to make her forget it isn’t real.

She doesn’t remember dropping her gun, but the cord that attaches it to her vest has it bumping up against her leg, insistent. If not for that, she might not even have registered Jasper’s gasp, or the sound of feet retreating carefully. When she grins—she can’t believe that _worked_ —her lips curl against Bellamy’s— _Bellamy’s—_ and it’s enough to have her jumping back from him, heart pounding.

“I can’t believe that actually worked, holy shit,” she scrambles out, hoping her scattered words come across as driven by adrenaline rather than the nervous, pounding energy she can still feel in her shaking hands.

He coughs, and when she looks back he’s following her gaze to where Jasper used to be.

“Sorry!” she says, quick, collecting up her gun from where it’s still hanging by her knees, “I shouldn’t have, I just—”

“No, you’re right.” His voice is deep and rough, and he coughs again. “It was good…um, good quick thinking. Good strategy.”

Strategy. Right.

She breathes deep, forces her heart to beat normally. “Right. C’mon, let’s go.”

He nods, and follows her down the hall. He probably can’t see the slight trembling of her hands, but she wouldn’t bet her life on it.

They win the game handily, still in sync despite the fact that she’s in a blur, managing to score two more rounds of shots on the blue base before the buzzer sounds. After the game, Jasper looks a bit like he’s going to explode, but he doesn’t say anything, which Clarke is incredibly thankful for.

She’s jittery the whole time, and she’s decidedly _not_ thinking about the kiss. Especially not thinking about how good it was. She _is_ thinking about what kind of idiot she is, but only a little.

She turns to commend Raven on her skill—if not for her, their loss would have been catastrophic—and forces herself to be consumed in the conversation. Still, she can’t keep her eyes from straying to Bellamy. Inevitably, she glances over just as he’s looking to her and for all she tries to look away as casually as possible, she’s sure she’s blushing.

But he might be too, she thinks, if the pink tinge to his ears is any indication.

 

**Game 3:**

They’re on opposite teams again the last game, though it doesn’t really end up making a difference.

By luck more than anything else, she catches sight of him passing one of the hideously neon dragons that probably used to move at some point.

She follows him, not a single clue what she’s going to do once she catches up. And she doesn’t get a chance to figure it out either, because she’s only a couple steps behind him when she sees Murphy up on a balcony, gun trained on Bellamy’s chest.

Without thinking, she reaches out to grasp his wrist, pulling him back behind the wall she’s using as cover. He yelps a little, and she hears Murphy curse.

When he recovers enough to look at her, he grins wryly. “We’re not on the same team this time.”

He’s probably going for snarky, but it comes out somewhat weak.

“Shut up. I just wanted…” She adjusts her gun in her grasp, clears her throat a little. “Look, I’m sorry about the kiss. I don’t want it to make things weird with us.” She has to force herself not to fidget.

He blinks at her. “Oh. It didn’t.”

So she’s got a crush _and_ she’s delusional about it. Fantastic.

“Oh. Great. Perfect,” she says, and it comes out a harsher than she intended, so she tries for a grin. “I shouldn’t have saved your ass, then.”

_Stupid for her to think…_

She’s turning to go when she hears him make a sound of frustration and then it’s _him_ catching _her_ vest, pulling her in for a kiss.

She stumbles a bit against him, but gains her bearings quickly enough, pressing against him eagerly. His lips are as warm as the last time.

“Okay?” he mumbles against her mouth, pulling back a little.

She nods, small, jerking movements, before pulling him back to her, feeling him grin into her mouth as he brings a hand to cradle her jaw.

To her credit, she doesn’t drop her gun this time, though her other hand does snake up into his hair, tugging him down a bit so she can get a better angle when he groans into her mouth.

He pulls back again much sooner than she’d prefer. But his breathing is ragged, hair a mess, and she’s pretty psyched that it’s _her_ who’s made him that way.

“It’s probably pathetic how long I’ve wanted to do that.” His voice is deep and scratchy and she wants to live in it. Then his brow furrows. “Did I ever apologize for the princess thing?”

It comes from nowhere and she has to laugh. “Is this the time?”

He just looks at her, serious. “I kind of thought it was. Considering I’m planning on asking you out.” He grins crookedly, blushing. “Unless you make out with guys in secluded corners of laser tag arenas all the time.

She shrugs. “Sometimes girls. I’ll have you know this place is the epitome of romance.” Her hand drifts down from his hair to his neck and she laughs, giddy. “I’m pretty sure the dragon’s watching us.”

“Clarke,” he says, pained.

She laughs again. “You didn’t apologize, but neither did I. We were both angry. Oh, and I’d really like to go out with you.”

“Still.” His hand is still on her jaw and it’s clear he’s fighting a smile. “I’m sorry.” 

She leans into it. “So am I. I felt awful that you got fired.”

“Really? How long did that take? You hated me.”

She tilts her head at him, perplexed. “Not long. I knew you were basically raising Octavia. And I don’t think I ever hated you beyond a petty anger.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“Good to know we’re both dumb, then,” she says, before pulling him back down to her, relishing his warmth in the drafty arena.

They spend the rest of the game wrapped up in each other and she’s sure it’s not luck that no one finds them the entire time. They don’t have the worst friends.

 

* * *

 

They’re not so absorbed in each other that they don’t make their way to the exit when the game ends, into the adjacent room to see the scores.

“What the fuck?” Bellamy says as soon as they enter.

Clarke laughs at his outburst, fingers still laced through his. The scores screen shows Clarke’s team winning, uncontested, thanks in no small part to the fact that she has an inordinate number of points. But Bellamy is probably more concerned with the fact that his score shows a number farther into the negatives than she’s ever seen in a single ten-minute game.

“Doesn’t your vest make a sound when you’re shot?” Raven asks incredulous, “How could you not notice?”

“He may have been a little…distracted,” Clarke says, bumping her shoulder against his.

He looks down at her, agape.

“Had to get you back,” she says with a shrug.

“I’m not so sure I want to go out with you anymore,” he manages, once he figures out how to close his mouth.

“That’s fine, Octavia probably will if you don’t.”

“Damn right I will!” the brunette calls from next to Lincoln, with an exaggerated wink.

Bellamy buries his face in Clarke’s hair and groans. “I’m going to hate that you two are such good friends, aren’t I?”

“Nah,” she says with a kiss to his cheek. “You’re gonna love it.”

She feels him squeeze her hand. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang on [tumblr.](http://www.goldenheadfreckledheart.tumblr.com)


End file.
